Writing this blog is always a challenge, because---when I am busy---I am both unable to update the blog, and accruing blog-worthy experiences that I feel the need to share, and---when I finally find time to update the blog---I have so many things to write about that I do not even know where to start. On top of that, I do not want to burden all of you with a book’s worth of writing about the mundane happenings of my life. So I will try to seek some middle ground in all of this, to the benefit of us all.

I realize that I have not really done justice to my short, but (very) sweet trip to Jerusalem of Gold (and of Bronze, and of Air….). I mentioned that I met up with my friend Ian Jacobi (of MIT fame), but I forgot to go into some of our wanderings (physical and otherwise). Looking for a place to eat, I decided that I was tired of dining at the America-saturated restaurants in and around Ben-Yehudah street, so we took off in the opposite direction (physical and otherwise) towards Mea She’arim. For all of you who don’t know, Mea She’arim is probably the most famous Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in the world, due to its proximity to the normal tourist routes through Jerusalem and its militant enforcement of their modest dress code on all who happen to pass through the neighborhood; many an immodestly-dressed tourist gets lost in the Mea She’arim neighborhood and emerges, at the very least, reprimanded (usually in some combination of Yiddish and English that she could not possibly have understood), and, at worst, assaulted with old food and other slightly annoying objects used as projectiles to fight off the modern world and all of its temptations.

But, if you can ignore this insult to our modern sensibilities, the neighborhood is actually a very beautiful mess of mystics, children, American yeshiva bochers, Halachic geniuses, bal habusters, and peddlers all running around through ancient-looking houses in disrepair, hat/wig shops, silver Judaica sellers, Yeshviahs, Sefarim (Jewish Book) Stores, and restaurants----the entire scene seeming like a mixture of a Polish shtetl from 150 years ago and an Arab shuk (market) from a scene in Arabian Nights. It’s very much alive in ways that do not exist in advanced, sensible places like most of America (except, perhaps, pre-Katrina New Orleans).

Anyway, we were walking through the neighborhood looking for a place to eat. As we walked into restaurant after restaurant, we came to the conclusion that, like their modes of dress, their food is also monochromatic: brown. Every little restaurant in the entire neighborhood served the exact same thing: different forms of shnitzel, tzimmus, some different forms of potatos, and some different forms of hummus. The only variation on this theme was a pizza place. Luckily, however, we ran into a friend of Ian’s from his Yeshiah in a Seforim Store, who also happens to be something of an epicurean and incredibly knowledgeable about not only the best places to eat in Jerusalem, but also the best deals in town as well. He suggested to us a Moroccan restaurant (my favorite nationality of restaurant, to be sure) in my old stomping grounds, Emek Refaim. Honestly, I do not think I have had good Moroccan food since the Village Crown closed last year, so I immediately demanded we take his advice. So we hailed the first cab we could find and rushed over, to be treated to an dinner of fresh pita, various pickled vegetables, hummus, tahina, harif, Moroccan cigars (thin pastries rolled around ground beef), French fries, and shnitzel. While this meal may not sound that exotic, those Moroccans do something to their food that makes it taste like heaven.

But the food was not nearly as important as the conversation we had. While we spent time catching up on each other’s lives and catching up on other people’s lives as well, one particular topic that came up in conversation I find worth mentioning here. Ian brought up that he had read a certain online debate between the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), the ivory tower of the Conservative Movement, and the editor of one of the larger online Jewish blogs, Jewcy.com. (You can find it here: http://www.jewcy.com/dialogue/2007-06-11/joey1). The two men sent a very impassioned series of letters back and forth to each other, debating about the current state of American Jewry, and its future. The basic argument of the debate was pluralism vs. particularism; the editor of Jewcy was arguing that American society had finally and completely destroyed the “ghetto walls” keeping Jews in closed-up society, that ideas such as stressing Jewish marriage to other Jews was just a vestigial tradition left over from the shtetl, and that we (Jewish particularists….or, more regularly, traditional Jews) should get over all of these outdated traditions, stop being afraid of the rest of the world, and embrace the entire human race (specifically noting that we, as Jews, are doing a decent job with this in how we are dealing with the whole Sudan/Darfur situation). On the whole, while I found his writing to be very eloquent, his tone was nearly hysterical in his desire to defend his own existence, and was very provincial, in that I think he would have a hard time acknowledging the existence of Jews outside of the Upper West Side (I am well aware of the fact that I am not making any logical arguments here, but instead offering my vague feelings about the debate…I really encourage anyone interested to read the debates yourself, and I would love to hear your opinion via email…maybe even have our own debate).

The chancellor of the JTS, representing a much more traditional viewpoint than I would have ever expected from a chancellor of the JTS, argued that the debate that the editor of Jewcy is presenting has already occurred---100 years ago. Indeed, 100 years ago, Jews involved with the burgeoning socialist movement (i.e. The Bund) were making the very same argument, and their vision for Judaism opening up and not worrying so much about what is happening only to Jews (since, in the new socialist reality, Jews would not be persecuted) and start worrying about the entire world (or at least the working class). This, of course, ended in the gulags of Communist Russia. He also took a few shots at the other’s argument that I felt rang true; specifically, he shot down the Darfur argument, saying that if all of these people marching around Manhantten with Free Darfur signs truly, truly cared about the situation, they would be down in Darfur helping with the refugee efforts (or, at the very least, over here in Israel, which is the only country in the region that will accept refugees from Darfur and grant them political asylum. I met a girl, from Indiana no less (!!!), who was looking at the Technion Medical school who has been working in the refugee camps here in Israel, helping them deal with their new reality here in Israel).

Either way, I am not going to outline the entire argument here, but I brought it up both because I found it a very impressively written expression of this argument, and because the argument, in some way which I am not exactly clear at this moment, resonated with my desire to live in a Jewish state. Since I am quite pressed for time at this moment (Shabbat, along with my ride to Netanyah, are fast approaching).

The rest of my stay in Jerusalem was really quite wonderful: I met up with Hannah Kapnik, a friend from Wellesley who has been in Jerusalem all summer as a counselor for a group of Jewish high school ubermenschen (Bronfman Fellows), who introduced me not only to a very strange exhibit of plaster grizzly bears from around the world (by “from around the world,” I mean that whatever group commissioned the project sent an 8-foot plaster grizzly bear, paws raised as if to attack or dance [I could not tell], to each country in the world, where a local artist painted the entire bear in some sort of way that represented that country; for example, the bear sent to the USA was holding a torch, and was painted to look like a bear version of the statue of liberty, and the bear from Cuba had a cigar sticking out of its mouth, and had some communist propaganda scribbled on its shoulder, along with a very strange picture of Fidel), but also introduced me to my new favorite café in Jerusalem, which is a hole-in-the-wall off of King George Street where the café is lined with book and they serve the most amazing iced-drinks.

Afterwards, I finally tracked down my cousin Jenny, who was holed up in her hotel (since her Birthright group would not let her leave). It ended up being really wonderful to see her and get to talk with her for a while, since I realized that I really had time to talk to her for a very long time. It also reminded me how nice it is to have family around, and how much I cannot wait until the rest of my family visits me here (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). I ended up staying at the hotel for the night, since I missed the last bus back to Haifa, and Jenny was horrified when I told her I was going to just stay up all night in Jerusalem. So I appreciated the floor to sleep on as well.

Since then, I have been studying in Ulpan, and working on figuring out my living situation for the next year/next four years. I have a very long story to tell about meeting a fellow a student at the Technion Medical School….who is from Oklahoma, and about finding what I hope will be my new apartment. So now you all know what to look forward to. Also, I am going to spend Shabbat in Netanya with the Brothers Kutnicki (Chaim and Solomon). So that should produce quite a few very funny stories.

I also really want to thank everyone who has taken the time out to write to me. It is always wonderful to hear from you.

Shabbat Shalom,

Michael